Good Morning!
We've completed the Reading MCA tests (as of today) - Math starts next week.  A huge thank you to everyone who has made our testing environment smooth and calm.  A extra thank you to Denise Carlson, who lives and breathes the MCAs for the month of April.  Thank you for all you do, Denise!

PLC Work
I wanted to send an email regarding PLC work.  The hard work you have been doing this year hasn't gone unnoticed.  I love joining (or reading about) your PLC and hearing the conversations on students, data, and interventions/enrichments.  It's been great to see how much teams have embraced the data boards as a guiding conversation piece, too.  Thank you for that!  I think our next step in this PLC journey is to go back to Nicole Vagle's (expert in assessment) rule: 

When looking at assessment data, it's 1/3 the analyzing and 2/3 the planning instruction.  This is such a powerful mind shift.  It's important to analyze the data; however, the majority of your time is discussing how instruction will change - through enrichments, re-teaching, and changes in your core instruction.  As we move forward into next year, we will spend more time looking at this. 

Student Engagement - Compliance or Authentic?
Here's a great (short) article on student engagement - is it authentic or are students just complying?  http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25920011&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Fblog%2F95%2F%3Fuuid%3D57736&cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2-RM


School Nutrition Employee Week (May 2-6)
School Nutrition Employee Week is held every May, and provides a great opportunity to celebrate all of the staff who make our meal programs a success!  This week is a perfect opportunity to thank our team for all they do- Lori, Stacy, Laurel, Josiah, and Mary.  Also, thank you to our EA's who serve a dual role in the classrooms and lunchroom.   We appreciate everything you do!  Take some time this week to celebrate our wonderful kitchen staff!

MCA Reading Data
MCA Reading data is available on Pearson's On Demand Website (https://mn.pearsonaccessnext.com/customer/index.action).  You can log in and see how students performed- however, hold off on sharing with students until further information comes out.

Department of Justice (DOJ) Survey
We will be participating in the DOJ Survey at the end of April.  More information will be coming on this. 

Building Weekly Newsletter
Click here to access the weekly building newsletter

Valet Parking for the Week
The Valet Parking for the week goes to Josiah Bachtle.  Josiah is such an amazing member of our McKinley team.  Josiah serves many roles around here - and does each of them extremely well.  What impresses me the most about Josiah is his flexibility and focus on all students.  Josiah is willing to do anything if he knows it's in the best interest of our students.  Thank you, Josiah!


I had to laugh at this one....

It's going to be a nice one out this weekend - get outside and enjoy it!  Have a great weekend!
-Justin